In an interview with National Journal's Hotline, Republican Rep. Pete Sessions (chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee) of Texas suggested his party couldfollow the model of the Talibanin its legislative battles.

"Insurgency, we understand perhaps a little bit more because of the Taliban," Sessions said. "And that is that they went about systematically understanding how to disrupt and change a person's entire processes. And these Taliban -- I'm not trying to say the Republican Party is the Taliban. No, that's not what we're saying. I'm saying an example of how you go about [sic] is to change a person from their messaging to their operations to their frontline message. And we need to understand that insurgency may be required when the other side, the House leadership, does not follow the same commands, which we entered the game with."

Sessions and his staff said Democrats have shoved the bill through Congress without hearings or mark-ups...(For example, Sarah Palin's bridge wasn't even considered!)

For those of you unframiliar with Taliban insurgent tactics, they are quite simple:

1. First, they bankrupt the government by blowing up oil pipelines,

2. then they abduct aid workers and behead them, so that the population ends up hungry and sick.

3. next, they kill people who work for the government, until the government is paralized.

4. and then, they bomb religious shrines to start civil wars, which paralize and tramatize the entire population

5. Finally, they do random car-bombings of the civilian population, until everyone is so hungry, sick, divided and terrified, that they decide that living under the Taliban would be an improvement.

Now, remember that the Republican Congressional Chairman didn't say we should do actual beheadings to disrupt health care etc. After all, we don't need to.

1. We don't need to blow up oil pipelines to bankrupt the government - we already did this stage with Bush's tax cuts and crusades. Now we just have to keep talking down the economy*.

2. We don't need to behead doctors, we just have to keep health care private, while making sure people keep becoming unemployed, losing their insurance and benefits. Done.

3. We don't need to shoot government workers, all we have to do is obstruct any leadership Obama tries to provide, and add riders to any bills that make it through, in order to sabotage them. We can also demand that Obama make the bipartisan gesture of putting the bipartisan Mike Brown back in charge of FEMA, since he did a heck of a (bipartisan) job saving New Orleans. This is all in the name of bipartisan bipartisanship.

4. As for civil war, we already have the culture war. Keep talking Guns, God, Gays and babykilling babykillers. Don't let the democrats distract people with trivial and unsolvable moot debates over irrevelvant things like their "economy" obsession.

5. If we play our cards right, keep calling for bipartisanship, keep obstructing and talking culture war, by 2016 they will be rewriting the constitution to give Bush a third term.

You've got your marching orders! GO! GO! GO!

*Footnote: Talking down the economy:

Even though we failed in preventing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act from being signed, we can still talk down the economy. NYT:

Republican aides said they would seize on every instance of potential abuse as a way of stirring public doubt about the measure.

As Roosevelt said about the First Depression, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." Our job as republicans is to create that "fear itself".

Remember to visualize what you want to happen. RNC Chair Michael Steele:

I’m telling the party leadership around the country, don’t believe the hype. There will be a slight uptick, it will flat-line, and it will continue to go down.

Our marching orders are clear. We must destroy America in order to save America.

Oh my goodness, what a wonderful and well-detailed suggestion! I hope this takes off, it could mean a huge turn around for the GOP. Sarah Palin supporters have already adopted a similar name (Paliban) so now we just have to wait until the party itself actually starts enacting some of the tactics. You might consider sending this post to them, Brother, I imagine they would appreciate it greatly!

It's not enough to mearly disrupt the ability of democrats to rule, but to disrupt the SYSTEM that gives them power. We have to disrupt democracy.

Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX),chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, has endorsed the strategy of staged protests, telling Politico the days of civil town halls are now"over."

You can't be the ruler of a democracy is there's no democracy left to rule.

In one incident of right-wing outrage, protesters surrounded Rep. Tim Bishop (D-NY), forcing police to escort him to his car. In another, anti-health care protesters hung up an effigy of Rep. Frank Kratovil (D-MD) outside his district office in Salisbury, MD. ...Reps. Steve Kagen (D-WI) and Steve Driehaus (D-OH) had to face down angry mobs. Kagen, whose town hall was targeted by the Wisconsin chapter of AFP, was "repeatedly disrupted" by "incomprehensible" shrieks and shouts from conservatives. And just last night, Fox's local Houston affiliate reported that at a rowdy town hall hosted by Rep. Gene Green (D-TX), some attendees admitted "they don't live in the district.

Jesus loves conservative lynch mobs:

Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC) has also recieved death threats.

I'm starting to wonder if I approve of the RNC's new strategy. The Bible says I can't break the law, and all these death threats and disturbances (while not as bad as what Professor Gates was arrested for) are of questionable legality. Has the Republican part moved too far the right of Landover Baptist?

Just came across some advice on what us rank and file republicans can do:

It’s time for the people who make this country work to put up or shut up. It’s time to make the deadbeats feel some pain IMHO.

1) Minimize your spending. Take your savings out of the economy and hide it as best as you can.
2) In the same vein, take as much of your economic activity to the black market / cash only market as you can.
3) If you are thinking about closing your business down, go ahead
4) If you are keeping your business running, take a strong look at who you are hiring and firing (ie consider firing minorities and single women)
5) If you are a doctor begin limiting your patients or only take cash payments.
6) If you produce food (farmers) consider reducing your output to drive up prices and help Michelle O. with her fight on fat.
7)Do not associate, coach, elevate, or help in any way those who trend Democrat. This includes charities.
8)If you are working hard to try and get ahead. Stop - enjoy your life and family while you still can.
9) Do not associate with liberal bastions such as schools, colleges, and the entertainment industry. Consider homeschooling your kids.
10) Move to a red state and start pushing for secession.

Interesting thing about all the succession petitions going around - even Republicans in blue states are calling for secession. That would basically have the same effect on government as if you moved to Europe. So why?

The point isn't to improve your government. The point is to destroy America.

Remember how the Taliban blew up those statues (aka heathen idols?) Well, we just achieved a similar effect, as the Statue of Liberty is shut down, (she's dressed like a whore anyway) and you can't even see the grand canyon (which looks like a big gaping vagina). No more pornographic attractions for perverted foreigners to look at, and less competition for Disneyland. At least until the highways crumble.

Hm, I guess we can fill our pickups and SUVs with bricks and drive with snow-chains on. That should speed things up a bit.

Well, I know the Taliban gets a bad rap for being Muslims (the religion of the devil; ie Obama). But on the plus side, I must say that the Taliban have been great customers for my company's made-in-China rocket launchers and IEDs. Of course, we had to do some fancy legal footwork to create an overseas subsidiary, pass the weapons through intermediaries in Chechnya, and move the money through our banks in the Cayman Islands. Despite the hassle, it's worthwhile, and we've found that the Taliban accounting department is exemplary when it comes to paying their bills on time.

Of course, now that we've shut down the US government, we might be able to do more business directly with the Taliban and cut out the middle-men. In fact, I'm thinking now we might be able to work with Al Qaeda directly rather than through their subsidiaries like Al-Shish-kabob in Somalia (note: that Kenyan shopping mall thing they did was great advertising for our weapons - you can't buy publicity like that!)

God punishing Kenyan shoppers because of Obama

Negro taking advantage of chaos to molest white child

Needless to say, we can increase shareholder value (and CEO bonuses) further by selling more weapons to the US military so that they can defend themselves against the weapons we sold to the Taliban. So its a win-win for free enterprise! Plus now that we're moving some of the manufacturing in China to privatized prisons in the USA, we are creating more jobs for Americans! Call it a win-win-win!

Conflict over the responsibility for the government shutdown got personal at the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. Wednesday when a member of Congress confronted a U.S. Park Service Ranger over access to the closed park land.

The congressman was Randy Neugebauer, a Republican representing Texas. He confronted the ranger in the middle of a crowd of tourists as she was keeping most of the public out of the closed World War II memorial.

The Park Service has been allowing World War II vets who have traveled from all over the country to enter the memorial, even though it's closed during the government shutdown; the rangers say they are exercising their First Amendment rights as they let the veterans in.

But they are keeping the rest of the public out of the facility, which is officially closed.

"How do you look at them and... deny them access?" said Neugebauer. He, with most House Republicans, had voted early Sunday morning to pass a funding measure that would delay the Affordable Care Act, a vote that set up a showdown with the Senate and President Barack HUSSEIN Obama. With the parties unable to agree on how to fund the federal government, non-essential government functions shut down Tuesday.

"It's difficult," responded the Park Service employee.

"Well, it should be difficult," replied the congressman, who was carrying a small American flag in his breast pocket.

Everyone knows that in a hostage situation, the reckless and amoral actor has the negotiating upper hand over the cautious and responsible actor because the latter is actually concerned about the life of the hostage, while the former does not care.

[…] virtually every bill, every nominee for Senate confirmation and every routine procedural motion is now subject to a Republican filibuster. Under the circumstances, it is no wonder that Washington is gridlocked: legislating has now become war minus the shooting, something one could have observed 80 years ago in the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic. As Hannah Arendt observed, a disciplined minority of totalitarians can use the instruments of democratic government to undermine democracy itself.

This constant drizzle of "there the two parties go again!" stories out of the news bureaus, combined with the hazy confusion of low-information voters, means that the long-term Republican strategy of undermining confidence in our democratic institutions has reaped electoral dividends. The United States has nearly the lowest voter participation among Western democracies; this, again, is a consequence of the decline of trust in government institutions - if government is a racket and both parties are the same, why vote? And if the uninvolved middle declines to vote, it increases the electoral clout of a minority that is constantly being whipped into a lather by three hours daily of Rush Limbaugh or Fox News. There were only 44 million Republican voters in the 2010 mid-term elections, but they effectively canceled the political results of the election of President Obama by 69 million voters.

[…]

Undermining Americans' belief in their own institutions of self-government remains a prime GOP electoral strategy […] Ever since Republicans captured the majority in a number of state legislatures last November, they have systematically attempted to make it more difficult to vote: by onerous voter ID requirements (in Wisconsin, Republicans have legislated photo IDs while simultaneously shutting Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) offices in Democratic constituencies while at the same time lengthening the hours of operation of DMV offices in GOP constituencies); by narrowing registration periods; and by residency requirements that may disenfranchise university students.

[…] focus their anger on scapegoats that do no damage to corporations' bottom lines: instead of raising the minimum wage, let's build a wall on the Southern border (then hire a defense contractor to incompetently manage it). Instead of predatory bankers, it's evil Muslims. Or evil gays. Or evil abortionists.

A couple of years ago, a Republican committee staff director told me candidly (and proudly) what the method was to all this obstruction and disruption. Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job, it would further lower Congress's generic favorability rating among the American people. By sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner. […] There are tens of millions of low-information voters who hardly know which party controls which branch of government, let alone which party is pursuing a particular legislative tactic. These voters' confusion over who did what allows them to form the conclusion that "they are all crooks,"and that"government is no good,"further leading them to think, "a plague on both your houses" and"the parties are like two kids in a school yard."

[…] intentionally sabotage government programs by denying them adequate resources and then complain that the programs don’t work, thus justifying further reductions in resources leading to more problems. The goal is to ultimately abolish the program on the grounds of being ineffective.

Of course it always helps if you can also deny the government agency administering a program a permanent leader, as Republicans in the Senate have routinely done during the Obama presidency. This forces agencies to operate on “automatic pilot,” unable to move forward and deal with issues arising within its jurisdiction, thus leading to problems that justify abolition of the agency and the programs it administers.

Another tactic is to make sure that an agency never knows exactly what its budget is. In the last three years, virtually every agency of government has had to deal with wildly fluctuating estimates of how much money it will have to spend, owing to various budget deals, sequestration and Congress’s unwillingness to pass regular appropriations bills, not to mention the constant threat of a government shutdown.

Right now, every agency is operating under a “continuing resolution” that expires on January 15. A “CR,” as it is called, simply allows agencies to spend at the previous year’s rate without any adjustment for inflation or changes necessitated by new laws or changing circumstances. This means that programs that should be cut continue to operate even as those that desperately need funding are deprived of adequate resources.